09-21-2007, 04:29 PM
Waste not.
When we kill cattle (my livestock can trace roots back to North African cattle and Spanish cattle from Roman times) we save the hide, bones, and all except the blood that hits the ground. The number of North American bears killed by the side of the road as you drive along I-40 through Tennessee is amazing. I often stop and harvest roadkill, although not the meat. Some animals are killed because they are a danger to man or choose to prey on livestock instead of other food sources.
I don't have a problem with using their hides. One group has a lion skin that can from a zoo, after the natural death of a lion. Waste not.
Sourcing? Sub-species is important, but probably not as important as actually not using a coyote or wolf when the Romans used bears or big cats.
Think about it.. the swords and helmets most people use come from India, by way of American and Russian metal factories, which provided the ships and tanks being cut up in Indian scrap yards to turn into our coolus or gallic helmet or pugio and gladius blades. The cloth most reenactors wear did not come from Roman era breeds of sheep, there has been a lot of managed evolution in wool bearing sheep breeds. (Most Roman reenactor tunics seem to have been machine woven as well...)
((BTW, the wonderful tunic material from Poland, is hand woven with hand dyed clavii, but the sheep have been genetically altered in the past 2000 years by managed breeding for better wool production.))
American Bears, British Bears, Ukrainian Bears, Lithuanian Bears, German Bears... A bear skin is still better than a species which was not used by Romans. Kangaroo skin headdresses on standard bearers is right out!
...... next we'll have to use only actual human (Briton) heads for our Batavian soldiers head collection displays.
:lol:
When we kill cattle (my livestock can trace roots back to North African cattle and Spanish cattle from Roman times) we save the hide, bones, and all except the blood that hits the ground. The number of North American bears killed by the side of the road as you drive along I-40 through Tennessee is amazing. I often stop and harvest roadkill, although not the meat. Some animals are killed because they are a danger to man or choose to prey on livestock instead of other food sources.
I don't have a problem with using their hides. One group has a lion skin that can from a zoo, after the natural death of a lion. Waste not.
Sourcing? Sub-species is important, but probably not as important as actually not using a coyote or wolf when the Romans used bears or big cats.
Think about it.. the swords and helmets most people use come from India, by way of American and Russian metal factories, which provided the ships and tanks being cut up in Indian scrap yards to turn into our coolus or gallic helmet or pugio and gladius blades. The cloth most reenactors wear did not come from Roman era breeds of sheep, there has been a lot of managed evolution in wool bearing sheep breeds. (Most Roman reenactor tunics seem to have been machine woven as well...)
((BTW, the wonderful tunic material from Poland, is hand woven with hand dyed clavii, but the sheep have been genetically altered in the past 2000 years by managed breeding for better wool production.))
American Bears, British Bears, Ukrainian Bears, Lithuanian Bears, German Bears... A bear skin is still better than a species which was not used by Romans. Kangaroo skin headdresses on standard bearers is right out!
...... next we'll have to use only actual human (Briton) heads for our Batavian soldiers head collection displays.
:lol:
Caius Fabius Maior
Charles Foxtrot
moderator, Roman Army Talk
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Charles Foxtrot
moderator, Roman Army Talk
link to the rules for posting
[url:2zv11pbx]http://romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=22853[/url]
